


Through These Walls

by chasethewind



Series: Chase's 12 Days of Christmas 2016 [8]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Late Night Conversations, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 21:37:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8940310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasethewind/pseuds/chasethewind
Summary: Anonymous: “We live in adjacent apartments and our bedrooms are on opposite sides of a very thin wall and one night I heard you crying and talked to you through the wall” AU





	

Oliver sighed. He had spent the last hour trying to read through a page of his business management textbook in order to study for his test the following day, but the sound of soft sobbing kept interrupting him.

Ever since he moved into his apartment a year ago, he noticed just how thin the walls were. Throughout the single bedroom flat, he could hear his neighbors softly conversing, watching television, or on occasion having really loud sex. On those nights, he'd lay back in his bed and think about the pretty girl in the apartment next door with the bright blue eyes and blonde hair that tended to babble when she got nervous.

There hadn't been much of that lately. She kept to herself more and more as the months went on, until tonight when Oliver heard her sniffle and cry through their thin shared wall. It had started from the moment she closed her door and flopped into her bed. Whatever was wrong, he couldn't stand listening to her distraught wails.

Oliver contemplated his plan of action before getting up. Taking a seat against the corner of the wall, he gently tapped his knuckles on the white painted drywall and waited. He could hear movement from the other side: the bed creaking, a tissue being pulled out of a box, and the blowing of a nose.

"Hello?" came the woman's quivering voice as she called out. "Who's there?"

"Your neighbor from the apartment next door," Oliver answered. "I can hear you through the wall and, uh, are you okay?"

"Oh, my god! Shit!" he heard her mutter as she sprang out of bed and began scurrying around the room. "I'm so sorry! I forgot how thin these walls were. I'll just shut up now and move to another room so I won't disturb you anymore."

Oliver heard her reach the door and turn the knob. "No! You're not disturbing me!" he quickly replied before she left. "It's fine."

"It's not fine," she mumbled. "I'm probably keeping you from sleeping. I really should have just gone to a bar. Maybe then I would have gotten drunk enough to forget tonight."

"What happened? If you don't mind me asking," Oliver prodded.

"My boyfriend… ex-boyfriend… He's such a bastard," she seethed. Her feet padded softly on the hardwood floor until she reached her bed once more and took a seat. The mattress springs creaked like they always did, but she was still in the room, and that was all Oliver could ask for.

He hated to see people in pain. If there was something he could do to help them, he would try. Sometimes it led to heartbreaking conversations and sometimes it led to silence. He was glad tonight's attempt at conversation had succeeded so far and let his head press against the wall to hear her a little more clearly.

"What did he do?" Oliver asked.

"So I work in information technology at Queen Consolidated," she continued.

Oliver immediately sat up. The mention of his father's company, his company, made him take notice. This gorgeous young woman worked for him and for almost a year he had no idea. He made a mental note to seek her out the following day and talk to her in-person.

"Cooper, my ex, does as well," she said, knocking Oliver out of his thoughts. "We've been working together on this project for months now. For the better part of a month, we took turns coding and fixing bugs on this high priority project. Unfortunately, I can't really say what it is because I could possibly get in trouble for it, but that's beside the point. I was heading home for the night but forgot to grab my coffee mug, so I went back to my office to find him copying my code onto a thumb drive."

Oliver's blood began to run cold. He knew where this was going. Security had called him earlier that evening about a suspected theft in the IT department. His father ended up stepping in to take care of the matter, allowing Oliver to slip out for the rest of the night in order to study for his exam. Had he known his neighbor was part of it, he would have stayed and taken care of the problem himself.

"I asked Cooper what he was doing, and he started to tell me about this other project he was working on, one that wasn't part of company business. It was a god-damn super virus with the potential to do a lot of damage if released, so I called security on him," she explained. "Then things got really scary. He threatened to hurt me, and I swear, if it wasn't for security and Mr. Queen showing up, I have no idea what Cooper would have done to me."

"I… I'm so sorry," Oliver whispered through the wall. His heart ached for this poor woman. He wanted to get up and go over there, talk to her face to face, but something made him pause.

"I'm sorry," she replied. "I didn't mean to drag you into this. I have a tendency to unload my problems on unsuspecting people and tonight it just happened to be you." She sniffled, grabbing another tissue from the box, and blowing her nose with it.

"It's alright," Oliver said. "You're not bothering me at all. Besides, you sounded like you could use the company, even if it was from the other side of your bedroom wall." He heard her snort then try to cover it up with a cough, but he knew he'd managed to get a smile out of her.

"Thank you," she finally replied. "What's your name? I don't think we've ever met."

"Oliver," he answered.

"Felicity," she said. "It was nice talking to you, Oliver."

"It was nice talking to you, too, Felicity." He got up from the hardwood floor and headed back to bed, picking up his textbook in an attempt to continue his studies. With his nose buried in the thick volume, Oliver's focus zeroed in on the information he needed to memorize for the following afternoon's exam. He had become so engrossed in the material that the rest of the world fell away.

Soft tapping against the wall pulled him out of his zone. He glanced over, his head cocked slightly to the side wondering if what he'd heard was real of if he was imagining it.

"Good night, Oliver," he heard Felicity whisper before the floorboards in her apartment softly began to creak with her lithe footsteps.

"Good night, Felicity," he called back, smiling to himself when he realized he'd reached her that night and made her life a little less shitty. Tomorrow, Oliver vowed to seek her out. He kept telling himself it was to make sure she was okay, but another part of him hoped something more would come of it. He'd find out tomorrow.


End file.
